


Let Me Sleep Tonight

by Oliver__Niko



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-23 08:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23841883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oliver__Niko/pseuds/Oliver__Niko
Summary: During the centuries after Sorey goes to sleep, Mikleo often finds comfort from the touch of another. It's in those arms that he tries to calm himself tonight, as nightmares stir him from short-lived slumber and his anxieties are at their strongest.
Relationships: Mikleo & Zaveid (Tales of Zestiria), Mikleo/Sorey (Tales of Zestiria), Mikleo/Zaveid (Tales of Zestiria)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	Let Me Sleep Tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smallblooky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallblooky/gifts).



> A writing server I'm in hosted a gift exchange to celebrate the one year it's been around. Luna was my giftee, and this is what I've created! Though I enjoy the premise of Mikleo only ever falling for Sorey, not ever having anything romantic with anyone else, him having this type of relationship with Zaveid during these centuries is something I've thought about many times as well.
> 
> I'm glad to be writing it at last, and I do hope you enjoy it, Luna!

There are nights where all is still. The wind outside, a calm heartbeat, subconscious thoughts amid peaceful slumber. Nights that seem to become rarer the more you crave for them. Sometimes, it’s a wonder if they will ever return at all.

Mikleo is wishing desperately for those nights as he sits up in bed. Beads of sweat tricking down pale skin, painted blue in the darkness. Trembling hands run through curls. Shallow breaths, barely anything coherent, other than the fragments of the nightmares that have once again tormented him.

It’s no wonder he cannot remember the last time he slept more than an hour or two at night.

Despite how he is quiet, trying to keep those rapid breaths under control, the figure beside him stirs. Turns over, a muscular arm lifting for the man to rub his eyes.

“Mikleo?” comes the grumble from Zaveid. “Everything all right?”

Mikleo breathes enough to enable speech. “It’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

Zaveid does the opposite. He sits up in bed, reaching over to the lamp by them to turn it on. Mikleo blinks from the sudden brightness. When his eyes finally adjust, they find Zaveid’s face, still worn from waking but more alert than previously.

“More nightmares?” he questions. Mikleo hums.

“Don’t worry. I’m used to them.”

“That’s exactly why I _should_ worry, you know.” Zaveid reaches to Mikleo’s face, brushing strands of hair behind his ears. Both a gentle act to calm him and a method to inspect Mikleo’s worn eyes. “When was the last time you slept properly?”

“Does it matter? Seraphim don’t even need sleep.”

“No, but like with eating, we’re at our best when we let ourselves have it. Not to mention that it’s going to exhaust you to _try_ and sleep, only to keep having it be ruined this way.” A pause, and a light kiss brushed against Mikleo’s forehead. “Y’know, if you told me about what you’re dreaming about, it might help you.”

Mikleo’s eyes drop. His hands brush Zaveid’s away to give him the chance for his head to turn as well. Usually, he doesn’t do more than hint, always hiding his feelings to himself. But today … As there are fingers tracing light circles over his knee, and he is far too exhausted to fight with himself and his stubbornness, he finds himself with little will to try and hide anything. “It’s Sorey.”

“Yeah. Thought so.”

“I’ve dreamt about him a lot. Always wondering when he’ll come back. But recently, it’s …”

There’s a slight crack in his voice. He lowers his head so his hair falls past his face. Hiding the fact that his eyebrows crease, bottom lip quivers, as though he might do something as ridiculous as cry. The hand on his knee squeezes in reassurance.

“I’m here for you,” says Zaveid. Mikleo’s eyes close, inhaling deeply from those words; he knows they are true. It’s difficult to say what their relationship is, friends with benefits or some other loosely used term, but Mikleo knows without a doubt that the care between each other is real.

A care that started on their journey together with Sorey and their friends, that only deepened in the travels that came after; months, years of Zaveid giving Mikleo a companion, not leaving him alone in case his misery took him down a path of self-destruction.

“I’ve been terrified that I can’t remember what he looks like,” says Mikleo. His speaking quickens, forcing the words out before his throat closes up. “Or that I can’t remember what he sounds like, either. It’s been so long, all these centuries, and that is such a long time in comparison to how long I knew him. What if everything I _do_ remember is just made up? What if none of that is real anymore?”

Zaveid exhales, running his spare hand through his hair. “Yeah. It’s real tough, ain’t it, going through the years as a seraph? I’m not gonna sit here and lie, saying that there’s not going to be _some_ stuff which becomes unclear. But you know, after being alive for a pretty damn long time already, I can tell you that you remember him accurately. Maybe there’s certain details that are fuzzy, but whenever you read something that he wrote, you remember better, right?”

Mikleo nods immediately. “I couldn’t forget him completely. Not when I still have feelings for him after all this time. I just—I get scared that when he does return, I won’t even know who he is. In those nightmares, sometimes,” Mikleo’s lips press together, “I don’t know him, while he’s begging for me to remember. Or sometimes it’s the opposite, and he doesn’t remember me. All this waiting, I can’t help but fear it’ll all be for nothing.”

A silence falls. Mikleo blinks, again and again, eyes stinging with forced back tears. His face turns back to Zaveid’s when hands once again cup his cheeks. Carefully, giving Mikleo the option to back away if necessary, those hands bring him in for a kiss.

A single tear falls when he closes his eyes and kisses back. He always feels guilty to. Sorey himself, one night, told Mikleo it would be fine if he ever needed the intimacy of another. That centuries is an awfully long time to touch someone again. Even with reassurance, however, it’s another thing he is unsure about.

That every kiss he shares with this friend, no matter how sweet they may be, will force the taste of Sorey’s lips out of Mikleo’s mind, little by little.

Even so, when Zaveid parts, Mikleo’s chest is lighter. Mikleo holds his smaller hand over that which cups his face, leaning into its touch as the thumb on Zaveid’s other hand brushes away the tears in violet eyes.

“It won’t be for nothing,” says Zaveid. “You’re both stubborn bastards. You know that, right?” Zaveid’s eyes soften over the slight smile that appears on Mikleo’s face. “All this is normal, you know. Ageing is scary for humans, and it’s the same for seraphim in a completely different way. Our concept of time is crazy. But,” Zaveid’s hands lower, resting on Mikleo’s upper arms, “that also means you might remember him far more than you think. Those eighteen years were special to you, the best of your life, and I doubt everything in them is going to leave you all because you’ve lived a few centuries.”

Mikleo find himself nodding in agreement. “Yeah. That might be true. Thank you for saying that. All this uncertainty about what’s going to happen builds up a lot, I suppose.”

“Like with how we don’t know exactly how he’ll be when he wakes up?”

“Exactly that.”

That’s another fear among the rest. Will Sorey be a different person when he finally stands again? Will he return as a human, only to start living again in that frail mortal life, reborn as a seraph who will no longer be blessed with memories? It’s difficult to say the path Sorey will take when he returns. This, after all, is such a unique situation, a first for the history books.

It’s astonishing, from the view of an archaeologist. Being a part of unfolding history himself. As a lover, as a best friend, it’s terrifying instead.

“That’s why we take this one step at a time,” says Zaveid. “It’s how I’m still here now myself, after all this time. Sure, life has thrown a lot at me. I’ve had these nights too.”

“Not that comparing myself to you gives me all that much hope,” says Mikleo, smirking as Zaveid gives him a gentle push.

“Shut it, you. Swear you’ve never lost your sass.” Zaveid’s face softens. “What I’m trying to say is to take each day as it comes. We can’t predict what’s gonna happen, and it’s not going to change any outcomes by worrying about it. So let’s chill, yeah? And just enjoy yourself.”

Enjoyment should be a straightforward concept. For a while, however, Mikleo found it difficult to do something as simple as enjoy things. His misery is an obvious reason why. The first years after Sorey left were the toughest he has ever endured, mind constantly in a dark place. It was like losing a part of himself.

However, even as his heart began to brighten that little more, as better days arrived where he realised he could find joy even without Sorey, he found another emotion intersecting his chance to enjoy anything; guilt. When he and Sorey had been kids, he can remember even now how he would refuse to go exploring alone if something happened to Sorey. He had been teased about it enough times to never forget.

That emotion resurfaced in the early years after Sorey left, and still does on occasion, only with far more intensity than that during his innocent youth. It was sometimes like he couldn’t enjoy himself with Sorey gone. He didn’t deserve that, in his eyes. Not when he ponders if he could have done something for Sorey, find an answer that allowed Sorey to live instead of fall into his slumber.

The way Mikleo’s mind works at times, so determined to bring him down, is that he is not allowed to be selfish. Enjoyment can only be given to him should others share it as well. This is simply not the case in reality.

“I’m trying,” he says, because he truly is. He’s still working on the life taken for himself all these years later. It’s not perfect, but even what appears to be the brightest joy never is.

Moments later, he’s laid down on the bed, and Zaveid has brought him close. Lips against his own. The creep of a tongue, a sigh against it as Mikleo holds onto Zaveid’s upper arms.

“Even this, despite what Sorey said,” says Mikleo as those lips find his neck instead, “makes me feel guilty. In fact, I feel guilt to you as well.”

Zaveid’s head rises. “Why’s that?”

“You’re aware that I’ll return to Sorey once he’s back. That I’m holding out for him, with the hope of carrying on from where we left off, making up for lost time.”

“I know. And I didn’t come into whatever we have thinking that I could swipe you away or whatever.” Zaveid brings Mikleo that little closer, hand on the back of his head guiding his face to rest on Zaveid’s chest. “Nothing wrong with this. Just two bros chillin’.”

Mikleo laughs, a light fist punching Zaveid’s chest. “Oh, shut _up.”_

“What? I’m right!” Zaveid laughs as well, speaking once it fades. “Really though, it’s fine. I’m not asking for a commitment for life kind of deal, for you to love me, whatever. This is kinda comforting for both of us, right? And there’s no harm in embracing whatever it is.”

“Mm. That’s true.”

“You think you can sleep now?”

“Think so.” Mikleo yawns, eyes closing as a hand strokes through his hair. “And thank you.”

“Always, Mickey-boy. You know wind daddy’s always here.”

“Please just _stop.”_

Still, he laughs again. Quieter, softer, as his exhaustion turns more tantamount to sleepiness. Perhaps this truly is okay. To welcome the warmth of another as he waits out in hope for Sorey, and remembers those words of taking each day as it comes.

He’s allowed to find joy for himself.


End file.
